5 Great Components of Physical Fitness

5 Great Components of Physical Fitness

There is no direct definition of what physical fitness is. Its meaning varies, but one thing that is clear is that every person needs to have a physical fitness routine. There are many programs that you can follow to attain your goals. However, there are five components that will give you overall body fitness and include:

Cardiovascular Fitness

Cardiovascular is the most crucial component of your physical fitness. It ensures your body has efficiently functioning lungs and heart. You need to have functioning and fit muscles for your body to have well-circulated oxygen, blood and nutrients. In short, your heart and lungs remain in a healthy condition and can work without getting tired and fatigued. The best exercise for cardiovascular is aerobics. But, running, swimming, jogging, quick walk and cycling are also useful.

Muscular Strength

This refers to maximum weight resistance that your muscles can generate in one repeated effort without resting. Muscular strength is the opposite of cardio fitness because the later is measured over an extended period while the first is measured in a single repetition. You need muscle strength to carry out daily physical tasks such as carrying, lifting or moving.

You can do some tests to measure how strong your body is through weight lifting such as shoulder press, bicep curls, bench press and leg press. They all help you to increase your muscular strength and tone muscles.

Muscular Endurance

This refers to the ability of your muscle or muscles to do many repeated movements or hold on a single position without much effort, but for an extended period or until your muscles can no longer stand it. In simple words, it’s the length of time your muscles can perform a movement or hold a position before burning out.

Differentiate between muscular strength and muscular endurance. The two are essential for your physical fitness but are different. As an ordinary person, not a professional athlete, you may not care much about it. You can gain muscle endurance by hiking, playing with children or cycling.

By engaging in aerobic and anaerobic exercises, you can improve your muscle endurance. They include step machines, elliptical machines and biking.

Flexibility

Flexibility is an integral part of your physical fitness. Your joints, muscles, tendons and ligaments must move in their usual motion rage without any pain or discomfort. Besides having an easy time when doing your daily tasks, physical fitness also protects your joints and keeps them healthy.

Flexibility is more important to physical fitness than people realize. Not only does flexibility play a significant role in performing many daily tasks, but maintaining or even increasing your flexibility is critical to protecting your joints and keeping them healthy. Besides, being flexible, physical fitness contributes to improving your lower back health, reducing the appearance and effects of arthritis, and reducing muscle-tendon injuries.

Body Composition

Body composition means fat percentage in the body versus the lean mass including tendons, organs, bones, organs among others. Health risks are determined by checking your body composition. The body composition comes as a result of how you engage in the other four components of physical fitness.

Conclusion

Having a fitness program with strength training and aerobic exercise will help reduce body fat and increase lean muscle mass. Thereby leading to improved body composition and enhanced fitness and general health.

Try out a variety of exercises to keep your body. If you are good at running, combine it with weight lifting. Understand the five components of fitness, and in the long run, you will achieve your fitness goals. It is easy once you find something that you enjoy doing.